Marching in the footsteps of Cork’s 1916 volunteers in Macroom

They marched in their hundreds, retracing the footsteps of the volunteers who took to the roads of Co Cork on Easter Sunday 1916.

While no violence took place in Cork, owing to confused orders and the failure of German rifles to materialise, more than 400 marched to Macroom on that day 100 years ago.

In Kilmurry, where they had all first assembled on Sunday, April 23, 1916, more than 300 people marched into the village on Saturday — the same date 100 years later. Most of them had walked from Bandon in spring sunshine, in contrast to the driving rain that marked Easter Sunday 1916.